Strawberry Scones

Got this recipe from The Food Librarian, who found it at Confessions of a Tart (click this link for the recipe).
Sorry my pictures aren't as beautiful as theirs. I first made these with frozen strawberries that I had frozen for three of the best moms I know (mine and my co-workers, one of whom will be a brand new mother in a few weeks - she WILL be a fantastic mom without a doubt). Today I made them for a friend who's doing me a huge favor tomorrow. I should have made two batches because my mom LOVES these scones. I'll make more tomorrow for her. :D
Anyway, these are pretty easy (except for the kneading part...it gets kinda sticky and annoying) and SO good. Not too sweet. Make sure you use heavy whipping cream! Or at least half-and-half!

Snow Balls/Russian Tea Cakes/Mexican Wedding Cookies

These are SOOO good. So simple but so good. The recipe doesn't make enough. I made these little bags for the teachers I help and my co-workers. It just so happens that the cookies match the design on the bag. I did notice the contradiction between the fall leaf background and the snowy bag/cookies. Oh well. Recipe below.







Russian Tea Cakes recipe (original HERE):

• 1 cup butter
• 1/2 cup confectioner's sugar
• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup chopped walnuts
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/3 cup confectioner's sugar for decoration

1. Combine all ingredients & mix well
2. Refrigerate dough until chilled
3. Roll dough into 1-inch balls
4. Bake for 15 minutes in a preheated 350 degree F (175 degrees C) oven
5. Once baked, roll while still hot in confectioners' sugar until coated
6. Let cool
   
7. Lightly dust with more confectioners' sugar
   

Finally Made a Dutch Baby!

Baked 6/13/09

WOW! So easy and so delicious and light-ish. Make one NOW. :D It's like a huge popover...only more custard-y and tasty and like a heavy cream puff. Or a puffy baked pancake but with a completely different texture than a pancake. I think I just ate mine plain, then with syrup, and then with ice cream, but people have recommended powdered sugar, jam, etc.

Hmm...I failed again and can't remember where I got the recipe, but it's below. I'm sure the ones on other food blogs and sites like Allrecipes.com or Youtube work just fine; it's pretty simple and easy to make. Pretty much just flour, salt, vanilla, eggs, butter, and sugar, if I'm remembering correctly, and you just need a pan that you can put in the oven. I think I'll go make some popovers now. haha




DUTCH BABY (1) RECIPE:

* 3/4 cup milk
* 1/2 up flour
* 2 large eggs
* 1 1/2 tsp sugar
* 1/2 tsp sugar
* 1 Tablespoon unsalted butter
* 1 1/2 cups fruit (optional)

1) 15 min before baking, heat oven to 450 degrees
2) Whisk milk, flour, eggs, sugar, & vanilla
3) Put butter in skillet or pie plate & place pan in oven just until butter is melted
4) Brush a coat of butter on rim & entire inside of pan
5) Slowly pour batter into pan
6) Bake for ~20 minutes
7) Reduce heat to 350 degrees & bake for about 8-10 minutes until pancake is slightly browned
8) Remove from oven & eat!!

Even Better To-Die-For Blueberry Muffins (New Favorite)

Baked 6/14/09

My new favorite blueberry muffin recipe! I've used this before, but I tried again, and now they taste better. Jenny T. and her family liked them! :)

*Recipe below (scroll down)*
- After the first try, I made these changes (still based on the original recipe):
(1) I made mini muffins + a small bowl of...muffin stuff? haha
(2) I added extra blueberries
(3) I made the whole topping recipe (the first time I only guessed how much I would need)
--> I don't recommend this. I had way too much topping left over (see picture below).
(4) I used vegetable oil (not applesauce this time)

HERE's the post I made when I first tried this recipe. The paper cups don't work too well, and I prefer these mini versions.



The topping (made too much!! This was all extra!):

To-Die-For Blueberry Muffin recipe:

RECIPE (original recipe here).

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup white sugar (a little less)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1 egg
• 1/3 cup milk (i used non-fat)
• 1 cup fresh blueberries (i used a little extra)
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup butter, cubed
• 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Grease cups or line w. muffin liners.
2. Combine 1 1/2 cups flour, 3/4 cup sugar, salt and baking powder. Place vegetable oil into a 1 cup measuring cup; add the egg and enough milk to fill the cup. Mix this with flour mixture. Fold in blueberries. Fill muffin cups right to the top, and sprinkle with crumb topping mixture.
3. For Crumb Topping: Mix together sugar, flour, butter, and cinnamon. Mix with fork, and sprinkle over muffins before baking.
4. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes in the preheated oven, or until done.

More Bierocks

Made some more bierocks (3rd time?)!! This time they were for my parents, brother, and grandparents, and I made the full recipe (still dunno where the original came from) this time (I used to cut everything in half because the recipe makes a lot). Pictured below is JUST batch #2 from a couple of weeks ago: the experiments. Most had the ground beef + cabbage filling, but some had cheese in them. YUM! They're also good with chocolate.

NOTE: I always have way too much meat when I make these. You'd think I'd have learned by now. Read the easy recipe here.

Bread Pudding Muffins

Baked on 3/8/09 for the third Psi Chi study group (they're not cookies, but we had Oreos there too).

These are really easy to make (recipe below). The most complicated part is cutting the bread slices into cubes. Haha.





Soak time!:



I know...switching between flash & no-flash makes the coloring inconsistent, but the flash version of this pic didn't reveal the texture very well:


I hadn't baked in ages!

Original recipe here.
Here's the recipe I used:
* Changes I made:
1) 2% milk instead of non-fat -- yeah...I usually only use non-fat, but I had extra from the first
Psi Chi Cookies 'n' Cram study group thing, which was a failure)
2) Chocolate chips instead of raisins

• 1 1/2 cups milk
• 2 tablespoons melted butter
  
• 4 egg whites
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 12 slices whole wheat bread (diced into 1/2-inch cubes)
• 2/3 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (I used Guittard)
  
  Directions:
  
  1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
  2) Spray a standard-size muffin tin with nonstick cooking spray
  3) Combine all ingredients but the bread and chocolate chips in a large bowl and mix well
  4) Stir in the bread and chocolate chips and let soak for 5 minutes
  5) Mound the mixture into each of the 12 sprayed muffin tins
  6) Bake for about 30-ish minutes or until firm and nicely browned
  7) Cool on a wire rack
  

Auntie Joanne's Best Custard Pie

* Baked 7.25.08 *

It's more like a big cream puff.


Melissa, Minh-Chao and I made a custard pie (based off of my aunt's "Best Custard Pie" recipe) last night. SO GOOD--and so easy to make!

Whoops...somehow we ended up with too much filling (we didn't even add all of what we made).




Wait--there's a story, as there almost always is whenever I bake (I tend to screw up a lot). We weren't sure what kind of pie or cupcakes we were making until they got here, but we decided to go with this custard one, which is more like a giant cream puff than a custard pie. I got this recipe from my aunt because she made this several years ago for New Year's or Christmas or something. Unfortunately, I didn't read the recipe until we started baking in my apartment...so we had to make a few substitutions and adjustments. First, I didn't go down to get milk and eggs before Melissa and Minh-Chao came over (stupid!) so we all went downstairs to the little convenience store right on the corner for eggs cuz we didn't think we'd need milk. Then we realized the pudding requires milk and that you gotta make the pudding several hours before you bake the crust (so that the pudding is cold and hard). So we decided to cheat and use ready-made Handi-Snacks Vanilla Pudding (lol in the little individual cups), which I now think is kinda gross. Anyway, we mixed that with the one other filling ingredient (real whipped cream) and sped up to the crust-cooling process too by taking it out of the pan and onto a plate and into the freezer. That all worked out pretty well; it still tasted really good! You just can't think about the pudding part too much (unless you like the taste of Handi-Snacks pudding). I'm still pretty happy!

Oh! And I have to mention that we didn't have a mixer so Melissa whipped the cream by hand!! That was way cool.

Whipping cream in liquid form:

Getting closer...

THERE! *Let me remind you that Melissa did this by hand!*

Next time, I'll prep appropriately (i.e., make and refrigerate the pudding earlier). Can't wait to try it again!

Recipe for Cream Puff Crust:


1/2 cup boiling water
1/4 cup Crisco shortening
1/8 tsp. salt
1/2 cup flour
2 large or 3 small eggs

1. Mix boiling water, shortening, salt & flour over flame/heat.
2. Keep stirring until it rolls off sides & forms a ball
3. Remove from fire/heat.
4. Cool 5 minutes
5. Beat in eggs, one at a time, and beat by hand (fold) until smooth and velvety.
6. Place in 9-inch well-greased pie pan and spread out so it is 1/4 inch up on sides.
7. Bake 15-20 minutes in 400-degree oven.
8. Cool on shelf in pan it was baked in. It won't get soggy so you can bake it the night before.

Recipe for Filling:


1 Family size instant vanilla pudding
1 cup whipping cream

1. In the morning to be served, make pudding following instructions on package for pie (will not set if overbeaten).
2. Whip cream and divide in half.
3. Fold half the whipped cream into the filling and save the other half for topping.
4. Put pudding filling in cooked, cooled shell.
5. Cover the top with the remaining whipped cream.
6. Chill.
7. Serve.

Slightly Burnt Boston Cream Pie

* Baked 1.13.07 *

I guess it did get a little brown (it shouldn't have been though because I took it out a couple of minutes before the minimum amount of time)...but at least it's not black!! I didn't like the ugly parts, so I smoothed down the chocolate over them. I'm not sure how this one turned out because I only licked the spoons of the chocolate and the custard. I hope my friend liked it! If it turned out like the one we made for our other friend a couple of years ago, it was good...I think (we used the same recipe). Can't remember. Anyways, HERE is the recipe for that from The Prepared Pantry.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Muffins

* I originally posted this 1.13.2008, but I've made these two (?) times since then.

* bad flash/lighting...I know...

I found the original recipe at BakingBites.com, one of my favorite food blogs.

Here is my recipe (the only changes were that I used semi-sweet choc. chips and I cut down on the brown sugar):

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2/3 cup brown sugar (a little less)
6 tbsp butter, melted and cooled (actually, I used part of a margarine bar)
1/2 cup crunchy peanut butter
2 large eggs
1 cup non-fat milk
3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 375F. Line a 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt and brown sugar.
3. In a medium bowl, whisk together the melted butter, peanut butter, eggs and milk until smooth. Pour into flour mixture and stir until just combined. Stir in chocolate chips.
4. Divide batter into muffin tin, filling each cup to the top.
5. Bake for 17-20 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean and the top of the muffin springs back when lightly pressed.
6. Cool on a wire rack (or just on a plate or tray).

Makes 12. * It really did make 12 full muffins; the picture is misleading because I ate the 12th one.

THE RESULTS:
* I love these because the muffin base itself isn't too sweet and the tops are PERFECT for muffin-top lovers (they're nice and big!). They were easy to make too! I would definitely make them again. I like the little bits of peanuts too. AND they smelled wonderful. I think the peanut butter flavor could be stronger, but since Nicole, the creator of BakingBites.com, says that peanut butter tends to make baked goods dry and dense, I'm not sure if adding more peanut butter would be a good idea. I think anyone else would like the peanut butter flavor though...I tend to not be able to taste pumpkin in pumpkin foods, so maybe there's something wrong with my taste buds. Also, I had trouble whisking the peanut butter in with the rest of the ingredients because the peanut butter kept getting stuck inside the whisk. Had to use my (clean) finger quite a bit. Overall, YUMMY. I plan on freezing these and saving them for when this semester starts stressing me out.

Whole Wheat Apple Muffins + Burn Incident

These are TO DIE FOR (even after cutting the sugar in half). Or at least my mom, dad, former co-workers, and I think so. I decided to make these after seeing a picture of them on Pete's blog (I found his site while looking for food bloggers to interview for my Anthropology of Food class), and he got the recipe from the King Arthur Flour recipe site. Recipe below.


So many apple chunks! PERFECT!

Here's the burning incident story: I forgot to take out the trays and stuff in the oven before turning the oven on to 450 degrees--BAD! But at least the plastic cutting board wasn't in there. This is a good learning experience. This is what happens when you put a brownie pan directly on the oven's heat source (luckily there aren't any holes).

APPLE MUFFINS RECIPE (original recipe here; I changed the amounts of sugar):
*Makes 12*

1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 Tbsp cinnamon
1/2 cup butter at room temperature
1/2 cup white sugar (I cut this about in half)
1/4 cup brown sugar + another 1/4 cup brown sugar as topping (I cut both amounts in half)
1 egg
1 cup buttermilk
2 apples (peeled, cored, and coarsely chopped--i used honey crisp like Pete did, but you can use pretty much any kind I think)

1. In a small bowl, mix together the flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon.
2. In a large bowl, cream the butter, the white sugar and 1/4 cup of the brown sugar.
3. Add the egg and beat until fluffy.
4. Mix in the buttermilk gently (don’t overmix).
5. Stir in the flour mixture gently and fold in the apples.
6. Pour batter into 12 muffin cup liners.
7. Optional: Sprinkle muffins with 1/4 cup brown sugar.
8. Bake at 450 F for 10 minutes.
9. After 10 minutes, turn the oven down to 400 F and bake for another 15-20 minutes.
10. Allow muffins to cool in muffin tin for a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

I'm definitely making these again! Most likely for my boss in a couple of weeks.